Free Macros Keto Calculator

This free keto calculator gives you a great place to start. However, what works best for your body may take some trial and error. Some people feel better eating more fat and some feel better eating more protein. For example, Dr. Wrigley has found over his years of practice that peri and postmenopausal women generally do better with more protein in their ketogenic diet.

If your goal is fat loss and better body composition, you're better off eating a higher protein version of keto macros.

Start with the macros given here.

This calculator uses the Mifflin-St.Jeor formula to calculate the number of calories to consume. It is believed to be the most accurate formula to calculate basal metabolic rate (BMR) or the rate at which your body uses energy at rest just to maintain basic body functions such as breathing, pumping blood, maintaining body temperature, etc. Height, age, weight and gender are used for this calculation.

Sufficient protein in the diet is needed to protect lean muscle mass. It is also needed if you intended to stress your muscles through exercise in order to build muscle. This calculator uses body fat percentage to calculate lean body mass. This is the way the keto macro calculator knows how much protein to suggest. 

Body fat is most accurately measured through a DEXA scan or hydrostatic weighing. This can be useful information to have before starting a new keto diet and lifestyle so you can more accurately track changes over time.

However, for the purposes of this calculator it is fine to estimate body fat as it does not significantly affect the calculations. If you are estimating body fat, err to the high side as higher body fat gives a goal of less calories to lose weight. Underestimating body fat will give a greater calorie goal.

This free keto macro calculator uses basic basal metabolic rate (BMR) as calculated by the Mifflin-St.Jeor formula. Since BMR only factors in the body’s basic metabolic processes, we need to account for additional daily activity separately. Saying you’re more active makes the formula give you greater daily calorie target.

Sedentary: Very little exercise and a desk job.

Lightly Active: Less than 20 minutes of not strenuous exercise per day.

Moderately Active: Somewhat active job and over three hours of moderate exercise (such as cycling, jogging or brisk walking) a week .

Very Active: Very active day job or intense exercise over 40 minutes a day most days of the week.

This free keto macro calculator doesn't automatically calculate a protein ratio. There are a couple of good reasons for this.

Experts in the keto space have different ideas about the protein ratio. Some believe that if you have a lot of body fat to lose, you should up your amount of protein in relation to fat.

Others posit that the types of fat you eat, specifically animal fats high in stearic acid signal your system to release body fat. In this case, eating the right fats and at a higher ratio to protein would be the goal.

At this point, nobody really knows the right answer. You are the only one that can determine how you feel and which of these paradigms works best for your goals.

The amounts of fat and protein the free keto macro calculator gives you is just a starting point. Carbohydrates must be low to be in ketosis, no more than 25-30 carbs for most people. However, even the number of carbs you can eat and stay in ketosis varies from person to person.

Using keto macros

If you've never done keto before, start with what the calculator gives you. Based on how you feel, what your goals are, and whether you are doing a lot of strength training, you will adjust your keto macros to suit you. Contact us if you'd like some more coaching around the keto macros you're eating.

The typical recommendation for protein is .6 to .8 grams of protein per kilogram of ideal body weight. For example, if you are a 5'7″ woman weighing 200 pounds and your ideal healthy weight is 140, you would divide 140 by 2.2 to get your weight in kilograms (63.6) then multiply 63.6 by .6 or .8 by 140 to receive a protein range of 38 to 50. However, this “typical” recommendation has been defined as the absolute minimum by experts in the space.

Some also calculate this figure based protein per pound of lean body mass, which is one of the reasons why the keto macro calculator asks you to estimate body fat. Lean body mass is what's left when you subtract body fat. Using the same example, if you weigh 140 with 20 percent body fat, your lean body mass is 140*.8 = 112 pounds. This would give you a protein range of 67-89 grams of protein.

Customizing protein

Proponents of a higher protein intake for optimal health and muscle maintenance/gain suggest protein intake be closer to one gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight. For the same woman above, this would be around 140 grams of protein per day.

As you can see, there is a lot of variance in the recommendations. After doing this for years and based on my personal goals, I've settled at around .6 to .8 grams of protein per pound of ideal body weight, which is slightly higher than the calculation that uses lean body mass. This amount is based on my experience and taking in a variety of information about the protein ratio. I also find it difficult to the higher protein amounts without being full-on carnivore.

For instance, your protein intake depends a lot on your fitness level; particularly if you're actively weight training and trying to gain muscle.

Fat and carbs are energy while protein is a building block. Since you are reducing your carb intake, you will automatically be eating more fat. However, the metabolic state of ketosis is reached by carb reduction, not by the amount of fat.

If your goal is to lose weight, there really is no need to focus on getting extra fat or even reaching the fat grams that the free keto calculator gives you every day.

Sources of fat

However, if you aren't satiated, adding fat should help. Popular sources for fat on keto include saturated fats from animals such as butter, ghee, tallow, cheese and lard. Most people tolerate these best when they're taken in natural form with the protein from the animal. Nuts can be a good source of additional fat as well.

If cheese agrees with your system it can be very useful on keto. Just keep in mind that cheese is also very energy-dense so if weight loss is a goal, you may want to moderate your cheese intake. A great example of using cheese in your keto diet is on top of low carb vegetables like spinach, other leafy greens, broccoli and cauliflower. Cauliflower rice with cheese is a great go-to side whether you're just starting keto or a seasoned vet. Even kids will eat broccoli when it's covered in cheese!

Avoid seed and vegetable oils

Good fats from plant sources include avocado and avocado oil, coconut oil and olives or olive oil. Please avoid soy and corn/canola oils at all costs! There is emerging evidence that these polyunsaturated fats can actually inhibit your fat cells' ability to release fat easily. Your whole body is made from saturated fats…the body knows how to deal with these easily.

I'm personally a fan of coconut oil for a few reasons. There is evidence that it may help with your body's ability to burn fat resulting in more weight loss, increases feelings of fullness can be used as immediate fuel and are less likely to be stored as fat. In addition, the work of Dr. Mary Newport shows that coconut oil/MCTs may be extremely useful in treating Alzheimer's, dementia and normal changes in an aging brain.

There are a variety of factors to consider, for weight loss, gain and maintenance. Sleep, stress and hormone balance all make a difference when it comes to weight. For a more in depth discussion of the calories in calories out model of weight loss versus a hormonal model, be sure to check out our Complete Beginners Guide to Keto. Most likely, it’s a combination of both models.

In general though, to lose weight you need to consume less calories than your body needs. To gain, you’ll need to consume more calories than you need. To maintain, you’ll need to consume roughly the amount of calories you expend on a daily basis. 

This calculator has a default calorie deficit for weight loss of 20 percent and a default calorie surplus for weight gain of 15 percent. Twenty percent deficit is aggressive and allows for the quickest weight loss but may be hard to maintain for a long period. 

To set goals that allow you to gain or lose more slowly, which is more sustainable, use the custom setting for the calculator. About 10 percent is a healthy and sustainable goal.

There is much more on this in the section about the protein ratio for keto. For the purposes of this keto macro calculator, the important thing to note is that it has already taken into account that we're looking for a number that falls squarely in between the absolutely minimum amount of protein and an amount that supports muscle maintenance without going to the much higher end of the current recommendations from various experts.

Whether or not eating more protein on keto is “bad” is a matter that is highly debated in the community. Eating a higher protein ratio can theoretically kick you out of ketosis since your body can make glucose from excess protein. However, this isn't much of a consideration for most people. In general, the amount of protein the free keto calculator recommends will not kick you out of ketosi if that is a concern.

If staying in ketosis all the time is a goal, the only way to really know whether a certain type or amount of protein raises your blood sugar or kicks you out of ketosis is to test with a blood meter. The gold standard is a continuous glucose monitor, but you can also test with a blood glucose and ketone meter. If that is something that interests you, we have plenty of discount codes on meters.

In the ketogenic community, there is this idea about total carbs and net carbs. Producers of packaged keto food are huge fans of net carbs. The total carb count is obvious, it's simply the total amount of carbs in a given food. If it's in a package, this number is listed as total carbs. Net carbs are more complicated. Net carbs are calculated by subtracting the number of grams of fiber in a food from the grams of total carbs. A great example is an avocado, which is a popular keto-friendly fruit. A 200 gram avocado has 17 grams of carbohydrates! This is a lot when you're trying to keep your carbs between 20 and 30. However, that same avocado also has 13 grams of fiber, bringing the net carb count to five. Sugar alcohols and allulose sweetener is also subtracted from the total carb count to get net carbs.

What about net carbs?

When carbs come in the form of whole natural foods with a good amount of fiber, they generally don't cause much issue with staying in ketosis. The challenge comes when manufacturers add fiber, often in the form of weird corn derivatives, in an effort to reduce net carbs. Sugar alcohols and other sweeteners are also subtracted in packaged foods. In the end, you could have a product with 30 total carbs! This would be way too much for most people in one sitting if your goal is to stay in ketosis. Yet because of these subtractions, the manufacturer might market this as seven net carbs or five net carbs etc.

Again, the only way to know whether a particular food will kick you out of ketosis is to test. In general, I am WAY more comfortable using a net carb count on fruits and vegetables and find they don't kick me out of ketosis. Using net carbs on anything packaged is much more risky and likely to throw you out of ketosis for a while.

Total daily energy expenditure or tdee for short, is how many calories you expend in a day including all activity. This is why the free keto calculator needs to know how active you are and defines those activity levels. Sedentary: Very little exercise and a desk job. Lightly Active: Less than 20 minutes of not strenuous exercise per day. Moderately Active: Somewhat active job and over three hours of moderate exercise (such as cycling, jogging or brisk walking) a week. Very Active: Very active day job or intense exercise over 40 minutes a day most days of the week.

Creating a calorie deficit

In general though, to lose weight you need to consume less calories (create a calorie deficit) than your body needs. To gain, you’ll need to consume more calories than you need; a calorie surplus. To maintain, you’ll need to consume roughly the amount of calories you expend on a daily basis. 

This calculator has a default calorie deficit for weight loss of 20 percent and a default calorie surplus for weight gain of 15 percent. Twenty percent deficit is aggressive and allows for the quickest weight loss but may be hard to maintain for a long period. 

To set goals that allow you to gain or lose more slowly, which is more sustainable, use the custom setting for the calculator. About 10 percent is a healthy and sustainable goal.

Ketosis is a metabolic state. This state can be achieved when the body burns off all of its glycogen stores and switches to burning fat for fuel. Most people can get into ketosis when they eat 25 or less carbohydrates per day. 

Each person has an individual limit as to how many carbs they can eat and remain in ketosis. Those that are not insulin resistant and those that exercise can generally consume more carbohydrates and remain in ketosis. Those who don’t exercise or are insulin resistant will need to eat less carbs to stay in ketosis.

Using a blood meter is a great way to test your personal carbohydrate tolerance. We recommend the Keto Mojo or KetoCoach. Get 15 percent off a meter kit at checkout through this Keto Mojo link or 10 percent off at KetoCoach by using code HNG10 at checkout.